Why is Great Britain inhabited? I realise it’s habitable — but so is Siberia, and so, one day, will Mars be. Why, however, would humans choose to winter in Britain? My llamas gaze at me beseechingly through the blowing Derbyshire mist, their big, moist, shallow eyes needing no words for the question: “Why live here? We come from the Andes, where there is light.

“It’s not that we are particularly cold, or particularly hungry or particularly wet. We are not particularly anything. Nothing here is particularly anything. Our lives in winter are pale grey, just like your country. The grass has no taste, the trees have no leaves, the low sky looks like dirty white plastic, and this damp, clammy wind won’t stop.

“Flavour and colour have been drained away. The land is exhausted. Why have you brought us here?”

I cannot answer them. All of us who have been born in the tropics are teased at this time of year by the same question. I have long admired Noël Coward’s dictum that the habitable parts of our planet are where bougainvillea will grow. Plant a sprig of the beautiful purple and crimson flowering plant. It if dies in winter, leave.

My plan for Great Britain is that the entire island would become a national park, mostly reverting to birch, hazel, brambles and gorse.

Some people would have summer dachas or villas here, and much of the North and Wales would be given over to adventure holidays and Duke of Edinburgh’s Award schemes. Otherwise we would live in the bougainvillea zone, which runs (roughly) from Toulouse to Capetown, returning here, perhaps, for camping holidays from April to November, when we could harvest turnips and gather berries and nuts. The United States would end at North Carolina.

In imperial days, France used to close the Sahara completely for the duration of summer. The same should be done for these islands, from December 1 to March 31. A governor and residual staff could remain nominally in charge, stationed on the Isles of Scilly.

Driving through the fog from Spain, I note that illuminated road-condition notices now tell you when an advertised hazard has ceased. “Fog” as you enter a patch, “End fog” as you leave. Very sensible. But shouldn’t the news media do likewise for waves of public alarm?

As I recall, we are still in a state of heightened readiness for the arrival of a bird flu “pandemic” which the Government’s Chief Medical Adviser has said is certain. We entered this emergency (I think) in the early summer of 2006. Is the pandemic still coming? If not, could we have an “end bird flu” notice posted? Ditto anthrax, sarin, ricin, in-flight exploding face-cream, all-night nationwide binge drinking (now we can) and the arrival of giant cane-toads from Australia.

Otherwise, with warnings posted only as we enter new alarums, but no “panic over” signs to end them, we risk a dangerous accumulation of national panics, leading to the ultimate panic: fear of panic fatigue, and lethal complacency. A nation has only so much panic to expend.

Conservation measures are urgently required.

I’m all in favour of the troops “surge” strategy that US neocons are now touting for Iraq. If we really are to bury Bushism and finally discredit its prophets, no possible excuse must be left for their failure in the Middle East. 40,000 extra troops? Go on, make it 100,000.

Why spoil the good ship Neocon for a ha’pence-worth of tar?

A seasonal warning to all who home-bottled elderflower cordial last summer, using screwtop bottles. These may be about to explode. One of my mother’s just has, overnight, in her pantry. Awoken by the dog barking, she found the whole pantry decked in tiny, glittering pieces of glass.

“It was quite festive,” she says. “Only the glass neck and the thick bottom remained.” So locate those bottles fast, and fit corks.

Come to think of it, don’t. The first “near tragedy” in Britain, in which an elderly lady could have been blinded if she had been present — which she wasn’t — will cause a new national panic. We shall be advised not to approach the bottle, but await the arrival of the emergency services in body armour and face masks.

Has our Islamic extremist foe explored the potential of elderflower cordial, I wonder? They will now. Quick, slap a ban on the sale of citric acid at Boots.

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